1983] 
Burnham — Geraridae 
9 
Remarks 
The family Geraridae was first established by Scudder (1885) for 
several fossil insects from Mazon Creek noted for their slender 
bodies, which tapered “greatly anteriorly” (Scudder, 1885:344), and 
for the distinctive branching pattern of RS in the hind wing. 
Scudder placed the family in the order Paleodictyoptera, section 
Neuropteroidea, where it remained until 1906 when Handlirsch 
erected the order Protorthoptera and transferred the Geraridae to 
it.^^ Most of the subsequent work on the family was carried out by 
Handlirsch who added a total of two new genera and nine new 
species to it (Handlirsch, 1906a, 1906b, 1911, 1920). 
This revision is the first systematic work carried out on the family 
since then, and rectifies many of the taxonomic errors made by these 
earlier workers. To a large extent, the mistakes made by Scudder 
and Handlirsch may be attributed to the limited availability of 
material at their disposal, and the preservation of most gerarids with 
all four wings lying over one another. Nevertheless, their errors were 
of grave consequence. To begin with, neither worker apparently 
recognized the extent to which intraspecific variation occurs in the 
family, and therefore each named only monotypic species. But, 
more importantly, owing to the difficulties of wing overlap, neither 
Scudder nor Handlirsch correctly interpreted the wing venation of 
Gerarus\ both managed to interpret the venation of one wing (the 
hind wing) and then assumed that fore and hind wings were identi- 
cal, although neither actually saw the fore wing. 
The advantage of having more material at my disposal made it 
possible for me to overcome the problems that faced these workers. 
Certain well-preserved specimens (especially FMNH-PE 5276, 
31973, 32027; IP 5, 23) were instrumental in demonstrating the 
complete venational differences between fore and hind wings. A 
comparison of figs. 6a and 6b shows how strikingly different the 
fore wing actually is from the hind wing. This, in itself, was quite a 
revelation. But it was only later, when searching through the litera- 
ture looking for venational similarities with other groups, that the 
■^Prior to this, all Carboniferous insects were included in the one order Paleo- 
dictyoptera in accordance with Scudder’s beliefs that ordinal differentiation had not 
taken place 'n the Insecta as early as the Carboniferous. We know, of course, that this 
was incorrect; a total of 1 1 orders are now recognized from that Period (Carpenter, 
1977; Wootton, 1981). 
